What are some things deemed basic or uncool that you secretly – or even unapologetically, depending on how confident you are – love? Everyone has them, even the impossibly cool. (Zendaya’s, for example, is Tom Holland.) I’ll start. I’m a word nerd. Nothing makes me happier than a New York Times Friday crossword (not as easy as Monday, not as much of a commitment as Sunday). I find etymology fascinating, and if you tell me the backstory of a word I didn’t know I will be truly delighted. I like how language changes, how it evolves alongside us through time and helps to tell the story of who we are. That’s not ‘cool’, right? Not in a The Fonz/Zendaya sense. But, like, it is, actually (she says, defensively). Take the word itself... American jazz saxophonist Lester Young is the first person most historians credit with using the word ‘cool’ to mean something other than ‘not warm’, in the 1940s. He used it to signify a kind of detached, effortless style – both in how a style of jazz was played and the vibe of the musicians themselves. It was about not trying too hard, about letting things flow. They were cool cats. Like many things though, while widely credited to a man, there’s some evidence of women using the phrase first. According to an article in Slate, “In 1924, the singer Anna Lee Chisholm recorded ‘Cool Kind Daddy Blues’. In the early 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston, in her short story ‘The Gilded Six-Bits’, wrote of a male character: ‘And whut make it so cool, he got money ’cumulated. And womens give it all to ’im.’”

In the ’50s and ’60s, ‘cool’ was adopted by Beat poets and writers (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg – still beloved by the cool kids today) to describe a kind of rebellion against mainstream culture. Being cool meant rejecting square, old-fashioned values and embracing a freer, more nonchalant way of being. It wasn’t just about style – it was about ethos.

Ironically, by the ’70s and ’80s, the word itself had become mainstream, and by the ’90s, its usage took on a more sardonic tone. But even then, it remained a way to define things that were authentic or alternative – separate from corporate commercialism. ‘Cool’ still carried the weight of an unspoken set of values: originality, confidence, a certain detachment. (In 1994’s Reality Bites, for example, Ethan Hawke’s La Rochefoucauld-quoting slacker Troy was cool, Ben Stiller’s ambitious corporate wonk Michael was not.) The intention wasn’t all that different from how jazz musicians and Beat poets once used it. But more recently, something has shifted. These days, the word has lost some of that original meaning, likely because we view the world through a two-
dimensional screen where aesthetics are everything, so things only have to look cool to be cool. (It’s not hard to guess who would be considered cooler using today’s superficial social media barometers – Michael, with his convertible and fancy job, or Troy, who sits around the house eating stolen Snickers bars. Not exactly prime content.)

Instagram is to blame, or partly to blame, for many things: skyrocketing levels of comparison-fuelled self-loathing, the loneliness epidemic, tradwives, House Inhabit. It also killed cool. Or at least flattened it into something surface-level and aesthetic-only. The problem is that cool used to be about authenticity and now it’s often just about consensus. It’s become a sort of all-purpose word of approval. But whose approval, exactly? Who decides what’s cool and what’s not? And on the flipside, who decides what’s cringe – cool’s current polar opposite – and what’s not? It’s all so exhausting. And boring.

In making this edition, we’ve been referring to it as ‘the anti-cool issue’ because, at its heart, it’s about liking what you like, despite what is considered ‘cool’. (You know what else isn’t cool? Writing ‘cool’ in quote marks. And yet...)

I keep thinking about this line from an interview in The New York Times with Donald Glover, who, when asked about whether his new music, inspired by his family, is too earnest, says: “I think grace is undervalued in the world. When I put my son on my shoulders, I feel deep joy. That’s real. No one on their deathbed is going to look back and say, ‘Thank God I avoided being cringe.’” Yes.

So this issue celebrates the things that people secretly love that aren’t considered cool, at least anymore by a certain type of person, but that are actually very nice – things like girlie pop music, collectable toys, pineapple on pizza, Broadway, fanfiction, Emily in Paris, shoes that are not the It-shoe, bags that are not the It-bag, ageing, romance books, smelling like vanilla, or smelling like supermarket shampoo, nanna desserts, minivans, going on holiday with your extended family, the idea of being obsessed with our friendships. But it’s by no means an exhaustive list. Anything we love unabashedly, even if it’s deemed passé, and anything earnest can play here, because there’s something about full-hearted enthusiasm that’s just inherently uncool, isn’t there? Which means the opposite of cool maybe isn’t cringe, but... joy?

Anti-cool, then, is about the end of micro-trends that are in one minute and suddenly not the next (they’re wasteful and bandwagon-y and expensive). It’s about rejecting the idea that you have to cosplay perfection on your social media, and wearing whatever you want despite trends, and about rewearing those things for seasons to come, despite newness. It’s about resisting the gravitational pull of the algorithm and not finding yourself in the same sneakers as everyone else just because they are this year’s waitlist ones. Personally, I will never stop wearing Nike Cortez, even if they make me look like a mother. (Because, er, I am one? And I’m cool with that.)

It’s about over-the-top kitschy-ness, like the giant teddy bear on our cover. It’s on there because there’s truly nothing cool about a giant teddy bear (stumble across one in a potential partner’s bedroom and I’d go so far as to say that they are definitely cringe), but on our shoot – which took place in LA during the recent horrific wildfires – this guy brought so much joy to everyone on set. And in the end, and especially now, surely joy has to be what wins? In the words of Paris Hilton (someone who embraced all the things cool people mocked her for and never stopped being herself all the way to the bank) – that’s hot. By which, of course, she means ‘cool’.

And that’s what this issue is about. Liking what you like. Unapologetically. Enthusiastically. Even if it’s a little bit cringe. Especially if it’s a little bit cringe.

Enjoy the issue,

Justine x